EPA moves to limit CO2 even if Congress doesn’t

EPA moves to put limits on CO2 even if Congress doesn’t

Published 6:30 am, Monday, December 7, 2009

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency's formal declaration Monday that greenhouse gas jeopardizes the public paves the way for federal regulation of carbon dioxide emissions from refineries, chemical facilities and power plants—even if Congress rejects broad climate change legislation.

Any new regulations could have a significant effect in Texas, which is a leading emitter of carbon dioxide, releasing enough each year that the state would rank seventh worldwide if it were a country.

The EPA's “endangerment finding” will give President Barack Obama political ammunition when he goes before world leaders in Copenhagen next week to promise U.S. emissions cuts as part of international climate change negotiations that kicked off Monday.

Although the finding does not directly impose new carbon dioxide caps, it is a required hurdle for the EPA to finalize proposed national limits on vehicle tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases. Together, industry and agency lawyers say, the endangerment finding and vehicle emissions limits would trigger regulations under the Clean Air Act on the heat-trapping gases released from stationery sources.

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In Houston, that could affect Ship Channel industries and area businesses, which would be subject to the regulations whenever they built a new major greenhouse gas-emitting facility or modified existing operations.

Six gases targeted

The EPA's decision applies to carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases believed to contribute to global warming. Administrator Lisa Jackson said the agency does not expect to propose an air quality standard for carbon dioxide, as it does for smog-forming ozone and other pollutants, because heat-trapping emissions aren't localized.

Instead, the Clean Air Act would require emitters use the “best available control technology”—which the EPA hasn't yet defined—to inhibit those releases.

Environmental advocates said the EPA action could back up anything Congress does later to combat global warming.

Luke Metzger, director of Environment Texas, said the EPA action could be a “good complement” to congressional action and mean stiffer limits on coal-fired power plants.

Coal plants generate 37 percent of Texas' electricity. They emitted 677 million tons of carbon dioxide in the sate in 2007, the most recent data available, according to Public Citizen, an environmental and consumer advocacy group. Eleven new plants in the permitting pipeline have the potential to add 80 million tons a year.

Texas emissions have declined since 2004 because of the rapid growth of the state's wind-power industry and lower industrial use of natural gas, among other reasons, according to a recent report by Environment America.

Shell Oil Co., which has backed congressional climate change legislation, said the EPA's proposed use of the Clean Air Act to reduce carbon emissions would “lead to project delays, years of litigation and regulatory uncertainty while businesses and agencies are waiting for the courts to rule.”

Legal challenge ahead

Indeed, the Competitive Enterprise Institute said Monday that it will challenge the endangerment finding in court, and other legal challenges to future greenhouse gas regulations are likely from industry and environmentalist interests.

The regulatory approach has been panned by lawmakers and business leaders, who say legislation can be better tailored to soften the financial blow on specific industries and regions. The EPA's Jackson acknowledged that Congress is better positioned to combine economic safeguards with greenhouse gas emissions limits.

Jackson said the EPA was driven by a Supreme Court ruling in 2007 that greenhouse gases qualified as pollutants and could be regulated. That made it important for the EPA to move forward “for our credibility and for the trust of the American people,” she said

The EPA's decision could prod sluggish efforts in the Senate to pass a climate change bill that faces widespread opposition from Republicans on economic grounds and resistance from Democrats worried about home-state interests.

The cornerstone of the leading congressional proposals has been a “cap-and-trade” plan that would allow businesses to buy and sell emissions permits to comply with steadily tightening carbon dioxide caps.